40M 16 38F
My husband, 40M and I, 38F, have been married 16 years. Unfortunately, it was not a great marriage. We were young, he was career driven, but he still wanted the 2.3 kids and the picket fence.
I was always on birth control, or we regularly used condoms because I’m extremely paranoid about getting pregnant. Motherhood was rough, and after 2 kids, I was done. I had transitioned off of BC due to side effects, and we were talking about the v-cut.
But then we had a fight, I was drunk, he was not. I told him to put a condom on multiple times, but he did not. I’ve always been loudly vocal about this topic, and I’m beginning to think he was taking some anger and aggression out on me. He said he didn’t hear me. 5 weeks later, I’m pregnant with our 3rd child.
After his birth, I mentally began to unravel. Three years later, I find myself talking about that night in therapy, but my brain, at the time, created a false memory, that, “the condom broke oops.” But in reality, this was what lay underneath.
We are in marriage counseling, but he believes this was an accident and takes no responsibility for that night. I am confused about how to feel. How can I express these intense feelings about being forced to have a child when I was desperately miserable as a mother? How do I tell him he broke my trust?
43 comments
This is something your should discuss in detail with your therapist and then bring up in marriage counseling. Professionals will have better advice than Reddit’s ‘armchair specialists’
Woah. This is *big* stuff. Stealthing is a form of sexual assault so it’s no wonder you feel so betrayed and angry. I would strongly suggest individual therapy for your to work through it all. I’m so sorry this happened to you.
Are you in individual therapy? If not, please get a therapist outside of couples therapy. This is above reddits pay grade, and you need to process this.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. Sending you love and peace.
stealthing has been termed sexual assault by the state of California. i can only hope other areas will follow suit. i am so sorry this happened to you and i did not stay with the man who stealthed me.
i hope you can heal and move forward.
Stealthing and reproductive coercion are both forms of abuse.
Domestic violence experts recommend against doing marriage counselling with abusive partners.
[This article from The Hotline, a domestic violence prevention organization](https://www.thehotline.org/resources/should-i-go-to-couples-therapy-with-my-abusive-partner/) explains why going to couples therapy with an abuser is unlikely to help. Counselling requires vulnerability, and this vulnerability may be weaponized by the abuser against the victim. Couples therapy requires giving both partners’ perspectives equal weight, but treating an abuser’s perspective regarding abuse that they perpetrated as equally valid as the victim’s perspective tends to be harmful to the victim. Furthermore, therapists need specialized training to treat abusers, and most marriage and family therapists do not have this kind of training.
Your husband’s insistence that stealthing you was just an “accident” sounds like [a common abuse tactic known as gaslighting](https://health.clevelandclinic.org/gaslighting/). If your husband was truly remorseful, he would have apologized for what he did instead of gaslighting you by trying to convince you that your memory is faulty. Also, he got what he wanted from the stealthing, reproductive abuse, and gaslighting, so he likely doesn’t regret it. You became pregnant, carried the baby to term, and didn’t leave him.
At this point, I would suggest stopping marriage counselling and starting individual therapy for yourself with a therapist who has expertise in treating trauma and domestic violence, and asking yourself if you want to stay in a relationship or raise children with an abusive man. Given the seriousness of the abuse that your husband committed and the fact that he is still gaslighting you about it, it is likely that he will engage in more abuse in the future, possibly against your children as well.
There is nothing you can do or say to make someone be accountable for their own actions if they do not want to be accountable. Trying to make someone who is actively engage in gaslighting own up to their actions is a futile endeavor. Your husband already knows that he broke your trust, he just doesn’t want to admit it because he doesn’t care about your boundaries. If he genuinely believed that what he did was OK and not coercive, he wouldn’t be gaslighting you about it.
You give 3 different situations here. Day one was it? . Did he start with the condom and then removed it? Did he not even put one on? Or did it break?
Why are you not taking to your therapist about how you feel? They will be able to help you out a lot more than random people online.
Can you get an abortion? You hated being a mother and your husband sexually assaulted you. You always insisted that he use condoms, so ‘I didn’t hear you’ is no excuse.
Edited as I missed the fast fwd three years
You can leave your husband for sexually assaulting (that is what he did) and forcing a pregnancy on you. I personally would never forgive him for such a violation of trust and respect
If you consent to sex under specific circumstances and someone changes those circumstances without getting your consent, that is sexual assault.
Did you consider an abortion if that is an option where you live? Reproductive coercion is also abuse.
wait, what was the point of putting 40M 16 38F , when you are just oging to repeat the information and describe it?
Question for you please 0P, did he know your cycles, I don’t want to go all conspiracy theorist on you, but did he know when your period was and that there was a chance you could be ovulating? Just wondering if this is even deeper than it seems.
Your feelings are valid to be resentful, the least he could do is apologize and own it. My ex was a gaslighter, it made me feel crazy at times! Don’t slip into that, stay true to yourself and seek happiness. If your husband continues to lie, you probably will not receive what you need from the therapist. I would consider a one on one appointment with him and evaluate from there. Best wishes!
I consider this rape, as do some entire nations. I wouldn’t wanna be married to my rapist.
Do you want a baby with that? Truly something to consider.
> But then we had a fight, I was drunk, he was not.
According to the law, intoxicated people cannot consent. The fact that you’re married doesn’t apply; you were (at the very least) sexually assaulted. No wonder you feel like he broke your trust, *HE DID.* And he takes no responsibility for his actions?
He broke your marriage when he assaulted you that night. You’ve been traumatized and now you’ve finally had it with the idea of continuing to live with your abuser.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think your marriage is going to recover from this.
What your husband did to you is considered rape in some EU countries. Julian Assange spent a decade in an embassy avoiding chatting with the DA regarding the claims of two women that he did this. Your feelings of violation and anger are justified. Anyone who tries to minimize your feelings is wrong.
Unfortunately you have a child of rape. You need to process what actually happened so that child doesn’t bear any of the blame in your mind. It should all be directed at your husband. He’s the one who chose to rape you.
It may be traumatic for the children to be around him in their formative years.
I would never get over that EVER
I’m glad to see you’re getting practical advice but I wish ppl were expressing a little more compassion/empathy in their replies. I’m so sorry this happened to you. it must be so painful to experience such a huge betrayal of trust from your husband. you don’t deserve that 💕
OP, could you possibly clarify something? As a cognitive psychologist, I’m a bit confused by what this means:
>Three years later, I find myself talking about that night in therapy, but my brain, at the time, created a false memory, that, “the condom broke oops.” But in reality, this was what lay underneath.
To me, this reads like at the time you had a memory that the condom broke, but three years later during therapy, you recovered a memory that actually he didn’t use a condom at all. Is that correct? Did you tell your therapist you had recovered this memory, and how did the therapist respond?
You don’t have to stay married to your rapist OP. What he did was rape. Stealing is rape. You did not consent to sex without a condom.
If your daughter sister or best friend told you this what would you want for them?
You deserve the best advice you could possibly give to someone else. You deserve as much love for yourself as you would give to someone else.
Find a therapist you like and talk this through with them, it’s a very serious situation, and probably best discussed in a professional setting rather than with a bunch of unqualified people on reddit. Hope everything works out for you
I don’t know if there’s a way to tell him he broke your trust that he would be willing and able to hear. You may find that you can’t make yourself be okay with this, especially if he’s not taking responsibility for an incident which most domestic violence experts would classify as sexual assault. Not to mention it was an assault that resulted in a baby you did not want to have. Leaving a 16-year marriage with three kids is much easier said than done, but I think this might be a time to listen to your intuition. Talking to your own individual therapist, preferably one who has experience working with domestic violence survivors, will probably be really helpful in clearing away some of that smoke, since he also sounds pretty manipulative. You deserve better and I know a big part of you knows that.
I would really consider a divorce…
What he did was sexual assault.
Go to therapy and talk it through.
Good luck
I thought nk itsntime to find right therapists and a. Divorce lawyer
Drunk people can’t consent
Stealthing is rape.
Your husband took advantage of you while you were drunk. If your marriage can survive that, you’re a stronger woman than me.
A lot of mothers hate being a mom. It’s a duty. You get fat, ugly, sad, no time to shower, you wake up a million times during the night for the kid, you can’t vacation, go where you want when you want. It’s not great, it’s not even good.
This man does not deserve to be a father to a third child and he is not a good role model to your kids. Honestly, I’d divorce him if I were you. Why would you stay with someone who doesn’t respect you?
5 weeks? No one’s forcing you hon
Your therapist should be helping you process it. If they aren’t you need a different therapist. Particularly one who has experience with recovered memories and traumatic pregnancies.
So today – start looking for a different therapist. If you need help figuring out where to look reply and I’ll give you some resources.
A Rapist is always gonna say it’s an accident. I hope you’re okay.
That’s rape. You consented to protected sex not unprotected sex
The baby is already here. Start working on being a better mother. Get off reddit.
This is no different than a woman lying about being in the pill.
You were violated.
He raped you. I’m sorry to hear you went through that, but it’s true. Get out of there as fast as you can. Take the kids with you. Lawyer up and put him *away*.
Your husband in a sense raped you that night. I know that’s not a word married people that have experienced sexual assault have the freedom to refer to it as such. I’m really sorry that this is the position you are in.
There is a morning pill to prevent pregnancy.
Also, why didn’t you abort the 3rd pregnancy.
You had a choice to protect your well-being.
3 years after the baby was born is very late to deal with the aftermath.
What kind of responsibility you are looking for your husband to take, 3 years after the fact.
You deal with that shit immediately. Don’t wait years.
Very sorry…
Hmmm…..you broke my trust that night asshole so own it. Direct, to tge point, concise. Leaves no leeway for misinterpretation and also vents your anger about it.🤔Sorry that happened to you and he was wrong.
You’ve been assaulted and probably illegal in your local area.
You have to answer three questions:
Despite everything, do you want to continue this relationship?
If not, do you want to try legal avenues against your assault, or other ones, if any.
Do you want to keep this child. Your body, your choice.
Every answer has its pros, cons, and consequences. You are in full control of the future outcomes for this situation.
What do you want, what do you want to go through, and what are you comfortable with.
Take some time with those questions, and the answer comes out of you without effort.
Best of luck OP
Why did you have sex if you were in the middle of a fight?
If you were drunk. What makes you believe that you had the right account of the situation?
You asked him to use a condom.
He refused and penetrated you anyway.
That’s rape.
This is sexual assault.
I had a guy attempt to stealth me in the middle of the night. It was a guy that I was already torn on continuing to see, as I felt that we were fundamentally incompatible, but had previously been intimate with. He initiated sex, and I stopped him and asked if he had put a condom on. He sighed loudly and said, “I was hoping you would just forget.” Nope, stop, do not pass go. I asked him to leave and I straight up ghosted him as this was tantamount to attempted sexual assault in my book.
You might have consented to sex, but sex *with a condom.*
Find a new therapist. My therapist is a male and he would agree with me.